


The Del Amo Game

by DearNiccolo



Category: 17776: What Football Will Look Like in the Future - Jon Bois
Genre: Gen, The Future of High School Football(?), a weird football game i invented too, i dont know what im doing, lunchables later, space probes watching football and perpetually hanging out, ten gets angry over football
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-16
Updated: 2021-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-24 12:47:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30072465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DearNiccolo/pseuds/DearNiccolo
Summary: Game #28462, AKA the Del Amo Mall Game. It's a chaotic mess of a game, involving teams of mall cops trying to run players over, an extended brawl in the middle of a concrete ditch, and a wild play stretching across the entire South Bay. The latter brings the trio of probes to start watching it once again at Juice's insistence.Alternatively titled "23580: The Future of High School Football".
Relationships: Juice & Nine & Ten (17776), Juice & Nine (17776), Juice & Ten (17776)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	1. New Year's Day, 23580

Juice, I fucking swear.

you arent gonna do anything lady

.

.

.

What the hell are you two doing?

ten keeps trying to insult game 28462, even though it’s the best football i’ve seen in a loooooooong time.

Yes, because it’s worse than Game 27.  
Actually, I take that back.  
Nothing is worse than Game 27.

both this and game 27 are great tho  
you just dont have taste.

…

What am I even looking at?  
Is that a mall?

yep

Why are we looking at a mall?

that right there is Game 28462

the mall game.

It’s chaotic, long, overly drawn out, makes absolutely no sense, and-

which is what makes it so good, something about watching five teams duke it out in the middle of a mall is great. if i had a mouth id be shoveling down popcorn bc of it.

So there’s five teams and I assume the mall is the field?

pretty much

and theres only four end zones, tho they barely work as normal end zones.

So four end zones, five teams…  
Who’s the fifth team then?

mall security

they joined the game around 200 years after it started so they could try getting all the balls and ending the game as quickly as possible. 

Of course they did.

So it would get even more confusing.

You know, I used to like Del Amo as a field before this mess started.

They used the mall for football games before this?

Oh yeah, loads, it was one of Los Angeles’ more unique fields. Unfortunately, it’s been occupied by this ‘game.’

i like it even more now

but yeah, there were four teams to begin with, and they had their end zones on all four sides of the mall. they were the teams from the four high schools in the area, north, south, west, and torrance.

idk why they didnt call it east high instead, just makes it weird and unfitting, but anyways,

north got the west side of the field, south got the north side, and west got the south side. torrance just got the east side.

Sounds confusing

it definitely was.

made it hell to watch it at first, though you get used to it. over time they made some extra rules, like the endzones being redrawn by their teams every 10 years. some rules like other teams being allowed to enter the end zone to steal away balls were there from the start.

Wasn’t that why you pulled the game up again?

im glad you remember that

basically theres one ball per store in the mall, so around 246 balls in total. the game officials hid them really well, which is why theres only like 34 of them in play currently, nobody could find the other 212 but theyre still somewhere in the building. the teams just had to bring them back to their end zones and keep them safe.

whoever got a clear majority of the balls for 100 years would win the game. made it basically impossible because 34 isnt much of a majority. 

Then why do they still play?

because they have nothing else to do and they find it fun. theyre like everyone else playing football out there

It sounds like more of a scavenger hunt than a football game.

Though that could be fun for some people.

its starting!!!!!

.

.

.

holy shit.

That end zone is a monstrosity.

Why does it snake up for so long!?

It looks like it’s clinging to the coast.

well, this is bold.

i think north might be trying to cut their endzone off

Maybe?

wait, what does that even mean?

it means you found out about this game at the right time, nine. things are about to get spicy 

Does that mean you’re gonna be rambling about this game even more than usual?

of course

what else am i supposed to do?

Ughhhhhh

.

I think it’ll be fun to watch this unfold.

YES

WHAT

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp, there's my first ever fic. Hopefully, it wasn't completely terrible, and thanks for reading it. Currently have four other chapters lined up to be posted in the near future, all of which are longer than this first one.


	2. Redondo Beach, California

ZACH: Have they passed yet?

ZOIE: Not yet, keep still.

MALL COP 1: Where the hell did they go!?

MALL COP 2: No clue, I guess we should try circling around. They have to be around here somewhere.

Circle back to base first, they’re still barely around. We’ll find them eventually, we need backup to pin them down anyways.

...I think they’re finally gone. You still have the balls?

Yep. 

How are we even supposed to make it a single mile if we’re being chased down by all the others. Why couldn’t coach send more people to back us up!?

Something about the rest of the team being tied up trying to keep any of the others from getting further into the end zone. 

Then how did those damn mall cops even get here!?

They probably slipped through some side street.

Now c’mon, we need to get to Parras. Coach said there were some folks there willing to help us out, it’ll give us a break from just running around.

...Why aren’t you moving.

This’ll buy us, what? Ten years at most?

What happens after?

< _sigh_ >

Here we are, running and weaving our way like madmen to drag a bundle of balls across the city for something South High could easily break by moving their end zone.

How long have you been playing football?

83 years, only watched it before.

That explains it.

Explains what?

You still don’t get it.  
You don’t get why people play football.

Nope.

Preferred baseball for the past 18000 years or so. A friend told me to try football out for a change of pace.

…

Are you going to answer?

I’ll explain everything when we get to Parras. See that as your motivation to keep trudging through suburbia with a sack full of footballs.

Fine

Juice?

yes?

I’m, errr, sorry.

I was being a little too harsh about Game 28462. Been scrolling through the archives and recordings and it’s been a bit better than I expected.

.

.

.

wow

never thought youd be calling a fuckin shitshow game ‘better than I expected’

gonna store this moment in my memory forever, make sure you never forget it

_Why_

bc i want to mess with you in the future

lol

but seriously, whatd you find nice about the game?

i didnt think you and it would mesh at all

It was mainly the strategy in it.

A surprising amount of strategy present in drawing all of the endzones, managed to impress me. 

Like… let’s take the previous South High end zone layout. It’s got this weird little corridor between its core and a large region toward the north. 

They stacked a large portion of their team defending that corridor, to the point where it’s an unassailable fortress, and they’ve been doing the same thing for a while. Since there’s over 200 balls in play, they just focus their attention on trying to find the balls rather than fighting any of the other teams for the ones already found. From the play archives, it seems their original version of the end zone was just a massive corridor that led to a large region of land, but they adjusted it. Not fully sure why though.

oh that was bc of the mall cops 

whenever south found a ball in the mall itself, they’d be run down by a dozen dudes on segways and have the ball taken almost immediately. the mall is the territory RULED by the mall cops, and theyre willing to fuckin’ run players over in their golf carts in order to snatch away a ball. its excellent to catch whenever it shows up.

but south put up a massive buffer before their end zone corridor so their players could actually avoid the segways and golf carts. its easier to get away when ur not either in a department store or in a wide open parking lot. 

Oh really.

what

That just made me hate the game again.

shit.

Why’d they have to make it so obvious…

Apparently whoever’s helping us likes being really flashy. Let’s just get in and rest, we’ll need it for tomorrow. 

finally got a good view to the north high players y’all

When did you start saying ‘y’all’?

since last week

anyways where’s nine

Here

Who are these two?

zach slater and zoie valle

both arent exactly the peak of the north high roster, but theyre some of the faster ones on it.

pulling this off mainly needed some players that were quick and a really good defense to hold other teams back.

Well, where’s the rest of the team right now?

so they’re kinda cornered.

Players from both West High and Torrance High are here?

and some people riding segways

a complete mess of a game

i love it.

Is this sort of thing even allowed? It’s like three teams against one right now.

looks like it, its exciting to see a play like this. been around three hundred years since something similar happened, back when torrance decided to team up with south to try stomping out the mall cops and maybe find a couple of the balls stashed around.

it was like john heisman was reincarnated as a mall cop and the teams were cumberland college. a complete bloodbath

From what the records say, the mall cops went fully guerilla on the teams from Torrance and South?

yep

then they went and stole half the footballs the two teams owned.

How did they even manage that?

it was bc they left their defense weak when they went out to start wrecking the mall, then when their players were getting constantly broken up by segway charges or run over, which made them put even more players into that hellhole. coaches of both teams were so busy trying to break through the mall, they didnt even notice that half of their footballs were snatched away.

they spent nearly a decade there trying their damndest to take at least one football from the mall. only when north and west decided to move their end zones to try snatching away whatever balls were left was when they stopped. it was a shame tho, watching the mall cops kick ass was epic. plus it got the torrance and south coaches to quit, and those two made some of the worst plays ive ever seen.

Holy shit.

I wish I was awake then to witness it.

too bad you and ten didnt see it.

it was one of the best things ive seen come from this game, not to mention the loads of other times that crazy stuff like this happened. have i mentioned the stuff with west’s whole airport schtick, 

or that one play that ended with a load of players duking it out in a shitty ditch/river?

or maybe how one of the balls ended up in the ocean

Juice.

or that one time they completely destroyed a department store looking for one of the balls?

JUICE!

WHAT

You’re rambling

fine

oh shit

i thought they could hold for a bit longer

Never thought segways could be that effective.

What the hell is that formation, it looks like some sort of ancient warfare.

It kind of is in a way, the mall cops as cavalry zooming straight by to steal the ball and crush anyone in their way. 

It’s a little biblical I suppose.

How so?

You have this massive combined army of players ready to steamroll any resistance in their way, all the while they’re facing off against a single team on the decline. It’s like the classic idea of David and Goliath.

but north high football is fearsome in its own right

its more like goliath versus a smaller goliath. in its heyday, north high was stomping on anyone it faced

still going decently, but a bit more tired and without the old talent. i see it as the tides turning, and the old beast of north high football knowing what it feels like to be crushed. i guess they werent used to that, which is why theyre pulling this

That’s rather poetic, the tides finally turning.

Never knew you had it in you, J.

i imagine its because im french.

//RING RING RING//  
//RING RING RING//

LEILA: Pick uppppp, pick uppppppp.

//RING RING RING//

< _click_ >

Yes coach?

We’re collapsing out here, we can’t hold them back!

W-what?

Get out of Parras and move north, no matter what it takes. 

ERIKSON: Coach, we’re gonna have to get the hell out of this parking lot.

We’ll try keeping them back for now, just keep going along the route I set out. I believe in you.

Watch out for any other players roaming up there. I think some may have slipped through and are combing everything they can find. 

Who the hell is doing this?

West, Torrance, and I think the mall cops. Some are saying South might join in. We’re gonna shift to Torrance and Anza for now, but I don’t think the current plan is working.

No matter what, make sure nobody can get their hands on those balls.

//CALL ENDED//

…

Is that coach?

…

Zoie what’s wrong?

We have to go, _now._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enjoy the images I quickly drew up for this chapter! Posted this a day after the first because I have way too much free time lol
> 
> I have no clue how football positions work, so the parking lot scrimmages are likely a complete mess that probably have little actual sense, but it's a nice visual.


End file.
